As the final National Academy of Sciences meeting to “brief”
Virginians on its 24-month study[1]
is slated to be held today in Virginia Beach, the McDonnell administration has
begun its examination of how Coles Hill uranium can be mined.[2]
But not only is this examination being done “behind closed
doors,” the examination itself is setting in motion a number of gears that in
and of itself will favor the go-ahead for the mining of uranium before any
official decision is formally made.
At the behest of Gov. McDonnell in January, Virginia
undertook an additional study regarding the impacts of mining uranium in
southern Virginia before the General Assembly took a vote on lifting the
uranium mining ban.
What this study in fact did was stall the democratic
process while Gov. McDonnell and his allies, that stand to benefit from mining
uranium in Virginia, work the political system in their favor.
With a potential $10 billion worth of uranium deposits on
the line, you can bet that those who stand to gain won’t allow the pesky
democratic process to impede their windfall profits, or so they hope. As the
director of the Virginia Sierra Club, Glen Besa, concluded, “The outcome is
already known.”
Fortunately, the fate of uranium mining in Virginia has not
been decided just yet. Many Virginian’s know what’s at stake, including their
entire way of life, and aren’t about to lie down and let the McDonnell
administration subvert the democratic process for their own economic and
political gain.[3]
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